April 4, 2005
Art Libraries Society of North America, 33rd Annual Conference,
Hilton Americas, Houston, Texas
Members in Attendance:
Emily Rafferty
Lucie Stylianopoulos
Jack Robertson
Kathy Cowan
Gregg Most
Sharon Wasserman
Julia Wisniewski
Kathy Woodrell
Heather Ball
Kristen Regina
Sarah Falls
Roger Lawson
Christine Hennessey
Liz Harter
Jane Collins
Matthew Wiggins
Recorder: Emily Rafferty, Vice Chair/Chair Elect, Baltimore Museum of Art
Lucie Stylianopoulos called the meeting to order at 6:35.
Minutes:
Emily Rafferty read the minutes from the Jan. 28th Officers Meeting, which were accepted.
Membership. Lucie read the chapter financial reports and membership statistics for the year. She noted that many members seem to have forgotten to renew. Kathy Cowan suggested that perhaps people should be allowed to renew their memberships for a two-year period. Lucie suggested making it more clear when to renew. Sharon Wasserman suggested we send out more reminders. Julia Wisniewski asked about allowing renewals in conjunction with ARLIS/NA renewals. Jack Robertson said that there is no way ARLIS would be able to manage this, but that we should express our interest to them. Kathy added that perhaps we should send out a reminder at the time of conference registration since some people wait until that point to renew membership. Lucie said that the officers would try to make the process more transparent.
Jack noted that we have a healthy reserve fund. Lucie pointed out that Gregg Most and Kristen Regina had a suggestion for reviving the social hour at the Fall Library of Congress meeting for which some funds could be used. Kathy Woodrell also asked about the possibility of getting travel funds for one of the speakers at that meeting.
Travel Award Winners. Sharon announced the winner of the Chapter’s Diversity Award, Isabella Marques de Castilla, from the Library of Congress. Julia, Isabella’s mentor said that Isabella is very grateful for the money and that she was unable to attend the Chapter meeting because after attending the session, Art Museums and their Libraries: A European Perspective, she was very excited about the topic and was involved in a discussion with the presenters.
Lucie Stylianopoulos was the winner of the Caroline Backlund Professional Development Award for travel to the conference.
Summer Meeting. Emily reported on the plans for the summer meeting in Baltimore that will take place on July 8th. It was requested that the meeting planners look into hotels in the area for Thursday and Friday nights for people who have far to travel. Kristen suggested dinner at the Helmand as well. The idea of a donation to the American Visionary Art Museum where we will have a tour was mentioned. Everyone agreed that this would be acceptable. Gregg asked why were thinking about a donation. He felt that the tour is a professional courtesy and a donation is not necessary. After much discussion, a vote was taken and it was unanimous that a letter of thanks and a check for $150 will be given to the AVAM.
Fall Meeting. Kathy W. and Julie reported on the plans for the fall meeting in Washington in conjunction with VRA Mid-Atlantic. The meeting will be Friday, October 7th. Two rooms have been reserved at the Library of Congress so the two organizations can both have business meetings. Suggested arrival time will be between 9:45 and 10am. The first event planned is a tour of the Folger Shakespeare Library followed by lunch. The group will then return to the Library of Congress for a panel on Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO). Matthew Beacom of Yale, Ann Whiteside of UVA, possibly one of the Folger catalogers and Helena Zinkham of LOC will be speaking. This will be followed by an optional tour of an as yet undetermined area of LOC from 3-4pm. It was decided that lunch would be sandwiches from Le Bon Cafe ($13.50/person).
The possibility of a fee for the meeting was discussed. Kathy C. stated that there was some discontent with the fee charged at the summer meeting in 2004 at MICA, although it included chapter membership. The Chapter decided to set the fee for the meeting at $20 for members and $35 for non-members (to include chapter membership). Kristen mentioned drawing the LOC meeting into a weekend rather than one day so that it will be easier for people who live far from DC to come. The Chapter agreed that tentatively, the LOC meeting would begin Thursday afternoon (Oct. 6th) with tours and finish with the speakers and business meetings on Friday. Preliminary information will be sent out soon.
Recruitment of Library School Students. Sharon spoke about the issue of recruitment of library school students into the chapter and profession. Possible avenues to approaching students include getting a group of members to go speak to them, talking to Joan Stahl about speaking to her Art Reference class at UMCP in the Fall, putting together a brown bag lunch at UMCP, inviting students to the meetings and posting meeting announcements on their listservs. Jack noted that the ARLIS/NA PDC and the Gerd Muesham committee also need to deal with the problem of how to connect to library schools and who to contact.